Come dive into a sea of words and swim toward a new understanding of the writing process.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Getting Back into the Water

Before taking time off, I always worry that if I stop
writing, cease searching for words, forego thinking about how to put words on
paper, I’ll forget how to swim and lose the ability to find words ever again.

Every year it’s the same. When I close my journals and put
away my works-in-progress so that I can rest and let the well of words refill
again, I fear that I’ll never be able to write again, and worry endlessly that I won’t ever again feel words flowing through my pen
or see sentences and paragraphs forming beneath my hand.

No sooner do I leave my desk behind, though, than these fears
fade away. There is no longer any stress from work. I can sit peacefully and gaze
out over the water (where I spent so much time swimming over the past year) and
enjoy the view without needing to lift a pen to paper to capture an image, a
scene, a thought.

And each year resting from work magically revives the soul and, just as
magically, gives the imagination a chance to plant new seeds that will ripen
(with faith and determination) into new stories for me to tell in the months
ahead once I return to my desk.

Inevitably, the time to return to the water comes, and, just
as inevitably, I become hesitant and doubtful and wonder if I'll have anything
worthwhile to say. Will the stories that I hope to tell this year be compelling? Will I
find the right words?

The only way to answer these questions is to begin work again,
to pick up my pen and start writing, to let my fingers play over the computer
keyboard, to close my eyes and imagine the words flowing through my pen or
pencil as my hand moves across the page.

“Writing is an exploration,” says E.L. Doctorow. “You start
from nothing and learn as you go.”

As 2013 begins, I’m stepping to the end of the diving board
and jumping, trusting words to come, eager to explore the world, learning as I
go.

Favorite Quotes

"Pour yourself like a fountain. Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins."

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

"Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea."

-- Jack Kerouac

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."

-- Andre Gide

"Delay is natural to a writer. He is like a surfer—he bides his time, waits for the perfect wave on which to ride in."-- E. B. White

“My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I’m grateful for the ocean.”-- Anne Lamott

"I want my reader to fall into what I've written like falling into water, to go down and down and down, to enter that underwater universe, to be transformed, to breathe like a sea creature, effortlessly slipping and sliding and swimming, a fish among fish."-- Norma Fox Mazer

"All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath."--F. Scott Fitzgerald in a letter to his daughter.

"If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water."--Ernest Hemingway

"You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water."--Rabindranath Tagore

"For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have. And if you go to draw at the true fountainhead, the more water you draw, the more abundant is its flow."--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Patience, patience, patience is what the sea teaches.”--Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Honoring Our Writing Teachers

How often have you heard people say that writing can't be taught?

Yet writing is a craft that all of us have learned.

And if we're lucky, we've had a teacher who inspired us to spend a lifetime putting words on paper, a teacher who taught us to explore our minds and our hearts.

Do you remember the teacher who inspired you to write?

Why not share a brief story about him or her with other wordswimmer readers?

Join these writers who have kindly passed on their teacher's gift of inspiration:

Send your stories (250 words), along with a brief bio, to wordswimmer, and we'll take a look and post them as part of our effort to honor our writing teachers.

Any questions?

Write to Bruce at wordswimmer@hotmail.com.

Thanks.

Recent Honors

An updated list for 2012 of "The Top 100 Creative Writing Blogs" includes Wordswimmer.

Thanks to the editors at Bestcollegesonline.com for including us in the "Improving Your Craft" category.

Thanks to all our contributors and readers who helped us find our way onto this list.

The Wading Pool

If you'd like to wade through Wordswimmer's past postings, you'll find a Subject Index at the bottom of this page.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Swimming Hole

Are you having trouble getting into the water or finding your rhythm? Confused over which direction to swim in? An online tutorial or workshop can help you dive into the water and swim at your own pace toward a new understanding of your story.

For more information, write: wordswimmer@hotmail.com.

About Me

A writer, editor, and teacher, Bruce Black earned his MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and now searches for words and stories on Florida's west coast, only a few miles from the Gulf of Mexico. His book for adults, Writing Yoga, was released in 2011, and his stories for children have appeared in Cricket and Cobblestone magazines. You can contact him at wordswimmer@gmail.com.

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